Happy New Year Members and let’s hope it’s going to be a good one – or at least better than 2020! As promised, this is the second of my monthly ‘President Blogs’ the purpose of which is to keep you updated on what your Board is doing on your behalf, and hopefully to generate discussion/debate/suggestions from our members on what IntNSA is doing and how we can go from ‘Great to Greater’.
2020-2022 Strategy and Work Program
The Board have now ‘drafted’ our 2020-2022 Strategy/Work Program. It’s ambitious (as it should be) and will require buy in (and input) from all our members if we are to gain the level of traction that we wish to achieve over the next 2 years. We have established 4 key focus areas with 2 broad objectives for each – see below. We will be putting out a call for ‘expressions of interest’ from members over the next few weeks and really hope that you will feel excited by the plans and want to join one of the ‘focus areas’ working committees. In the meantime, we invite you to read the draft plan and welcome your feedback. Click here to leave your comments on the work program.
Click here to view the Strategic Plan 2020-2022
Latest update on Position Papers (Joint Position Statement with Emergency Nurses Association)
Initially developed in 2012 a Joint Position Statement on ‘Expanding Roles and Responsibilities for Nurses in Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) for Alcohol and Other Substance Use has been updated and published this month January 2021. We are grateful to the authors Dr. Jennifer Schieferle Uhlenbrock (ENA), Dr. Katherine Fornili and Dr. Stephen Strobbe (IntNSA) and colleagues who assisted in the review process. To view this paper please click here.
Conference Plans for 2021
The Board have taken the decision given the ongoing uncertainties associated with the ‘pandemic’ and ability of our members to travel, or indeed feel safe in travelling (if permitted) that this year’s conference planned for October in Calgary will be deferred as a ‘face to face’ meeting for a further year. In light of the success of our ‘virtual global conference’, the Board have agreed to support members who wish to host ‘local/regional’ online conferences via our Elearning platform. For example, we are mindful as part of the USA National Chapter Development plans – some of our USA members have already indicated an interest in hosting a conference focussed on the needs and issues within the USA; equally our Portuguese Chapter has already announced their Congress to be held in April 2021 – check out their program here.
In a Chapter Board meeting this week with IntNSA Netherlands we discussed their idea of seeking to grow the European Region by hosting a joint conference and they will be reaching out in the coming weeks with UK, Ireland, Portugal and Finland to explore the feasibility of this. Hopefully, I can update these plans in my next blog.
Updates on the Board and our work with Ex-officios
I would like to take this opportunity of announcing Nancy Diener’s resignation from the Board due to personal reasons. Nancy was first elected to the Board in 2019 and has been an extremely supportive and diligent Board member. She has not taken this decision lightly and shared how much she has ‘enjoyed working with everyone’. We will be forever grateful to Nancy for all of her input, strategic thinking and commitment to IntNSA and its mission. We know that as she continues to be a member of IntNSA she will keep us in her heart and minds as we will her.
I am pleased to announce that we have appointed Adrian Jugdoyal (UK Chapter) as per IntNSA bylaws – Article III, Section 6, Item 3 “Director Vacancies: Vacancies occurring before the expiration of the term may be filled by appointment of the President with the approval of the Board of Directors. Priority consideration shall be given to the person(s) receiving the most votes, in order, in the most recent election”. Adrian will serve out the remainder of Nancy’s term of office which ends October 2021.
As part of our work program, the Executive Board members have begun a period of consultation with our ‘ex officio’ members: ANCB, JAN, FAN and FIAANs to establish their feedback on our ‘draft strategy’ and how each of these groups can work closely with IntNSA as we progress our strategy on members behalf.
We had our first meeting with ANCB this week which was extremely helpful and established that ANCB (given its purpose and mission) will align with the development and scope of work associated with the planned USA Country Chapter. It was recognised that as IntNSA grows its ‘global footprint’ and the mounting interest by other Country Chapters to replicate the good work of ANCB in developing a certification for nurses in addiction, ANCB offered to support/guide others should such requests be made. It was also agreed between IntNSA and ANCB that as ANCB was now a fully independent entity it was appropriate for ANCB’s ‘ex-officio status’ to be rescinded and that going forward both organizations would revise its ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MOU) (due in March 2021) to reflect the current relationship. IntNSA would like to take this opportunity of thanking ANCB for all of its commitment to the mission of IntNSA and to addictions nursing in general and look forward to a renewed and exciting relationship as we move forward.
IntNSA Executive Board members will be meeting with our Editor in Chief of the Journal of Addictions Nursing; the interim President of the Foundations of Addiction Nursing (FAN) and members of our FIAANs group over the month of February. Updates on the outcomes of these meetings will be shared in my February Blog.
I think that is all for the moment – please feel free to reach out to me or any of the Board members if you would like to discuss anything shared in this blog or if you have any other thoughts or ideas that you would like to see the Board address.
Have a great month and stay well and stay safe!
President Carmel Clancy
January 31, 2021
